Ottawa to fund $2.5 million after tourism booms in 2017

After the tourism sector boomed greatly last year, the city has decided to rise the funding to $2.5 million for major events as the city likes to keep the tourism boom intact. The city officials believe that the new municipal accommodation tax which was implemented from January this year will guarantee investments that will endorse and develop Ottawa’s tourism industry and further boost the tourism industry’s boom in 2017.

The city expects $5,00,000 of the planned tax revenue will go to the convention development fund, which will be used to draw more international and corporate conventions to Ottawa by Ottawa Tourism and the Shaw Centre.  A whopping $1 million of the revenue will be used in the major events fund, which Ottawa Tourism uses to attract large events to attract more tourists to the city. These amounts add to the existing $1.5 million annual contribution to the fund, increasing the total funding to $2.5 million per year. It’s believed that the programming and marketing of the city in 2017 was a major reason for attaining a great peak in tourism industry.

“I can’t stress enough the importance of tourism in the nation’s capital. It’s the third most important sector of our economy after the public service and higher tech, and approximately 40,000 jobs depend on hospitality and tourism,” said Councillor Jean Cloutier.

Ottawa had more than 11 million visitors, recording an increase of 8.8 per cent when compared to 2016. The total spending of tourists amounted more than $2.3 billion, registering a rise of 10.3 per cent. “This new funding is really going to enable us to bid even more and host even more events here in the city. That’s important to us because collectively as an industry we set a very aggressive target that by 2022 we want every year to be as successful, from a major events and major meetings perspective, as 2017 was,” said Michael Crockatt, President and CEO of Ottawa Tourism.